News
Local

Contractor to rehabilitate six LS pumping stations

LAMBTON SHORES - Council has awarded an $861,721.53 contract for rehabilitating four pumping stations in Grand Bend and two in Thedford that apparently need to be restored to their original capacity.

Stratford-based Selectra Inc. won the job in a two-way competition with a bid of $1,271,086 by Finnbuilt General Contracting, also based in Stratford.

“The 2017 budget included $921,100 for this project which was carried forward to 2018,” director of community services Steve McAuley told council.

An Infrastructure Canada Clean Water and Wastewater Fund commitment of $482,325 will help support the Alberta Street, Green Acres, Beach, and Morenz Lane wastewater pumping station projects in Grand Bend. They were estimated to cost a total of $643,100.

The two pump station rehabilitations in Thedford will not benefit from federal funding. The community services director noted that council previously approved engineering costs of $151,266.24, bringing the total project cost to $1,028,154.07, which includes $75,000 in contingency, which may or may not be used to complete the projects. The total cost to Lambton Shores could be as high as $545,829, some of that drawn from the sewer reserve fund.

“The work is expected to be carried out through to the end of 2018, however certain works in areas of Grand Bend will only be completed outside the summer tourist season,” McAuley told council.

During the same Jan. 23 meeting, council received treasurer Janet Ferguson’s update of the previous week’s operating and capital budget amendments and passed By-law 12-2018 authorizing that both budgets be implemented.

Her report also helps update the Times-Advance story in last week’s edition. The tax levy to be collected from residential, commercial and industrial property owners is $11,600,651, which is 2.7 per cent or $307,995 over the 2017 levy. But because of assessment value increases the resulting tax rate is estimated to decrease by 2.2 per cent from the 2017 rate for the local municipality’s operations.

Still to be determined are rates set by the province for school support and by Lambton for the county’s 2018 operations. Ferguson told the T-A just before deadline that she has not yet received news of the education tax rate.

First draft of Lambton County’s budget will be presented to a joint meeting of council’s two major committees on Feb. 21. Full county council is to begin its budget deliberations on March 7. And then it is to approve a 2018 tax rate policy before its lower tier municipalities such as Lambton Shores can confirm their own tax rates for this year.